Religious Studies Activities and Events

Unless otherwise indicated, lectures listed below are free and open to the public.

Unless otherwise indicated, lectures listed below were in the Religious Studies Colloquium Series.

2024-25

• Megan Goodwin (Bardo Institute for Religion and Public Policy) and Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (University of Vermont), “Flight Risk: Surveillance, Security, and the Study of Religion,” Annual Impact of Religion Lecture, February 24, 2025, 4:30 – 6:00 p.m., 111 Lampe Hall, Room 434.
• Joseph Winters (Duke University), “Black Studies, Imperialism, and the Religiosity of the Secular,” February 7, 2025, 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., 1911 Building, Room 129

2023-24

• April Hughes (Boston University), “Paradise on Earth: Medieval Paintings from the Buddhist Silk Road,” April 9, 2024, 3:30 p.m.
• Simran Jeet Singh (Aspen Institute), “Turbans, Beards, and Brown Skin: Learning to Navigate Bigotry in Modern America,” Annual Impact of Religion Lecture, April 18, 2024, 3:00 p.m.

2022-23

• Elizabeth Shakman Hurd (Northwestern University), “Decolonizing Secularism and Religious Freedom,” Annual Impact of Religion Lecture, April 13, 2023

2021-22

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, no in-person events were held during the year.

• Philosophy and Religious Studies Virtual Awards Celebration, March 11, 2022

2020-21

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, scheduled in-person events were canceled for the year.

• Philosophy and Religious Studies Virtual Student Awards Celebration, March 12, 2021
• Robert Jones (Public Religion Research Institute), “The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity,” virtual talk, September 9, 2020 (co-sponsored by Religious Studies, Interdisciplinary Studies and the Cal Turner Program for Moral Leadership at Vanderbilt Divinity School)

2019-20

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, scheduled in-person events were canceled after March 5, 2020.

• Jessica Johnson (William and Mary), “Hate Crime or Domestic Terrorism? Replacement, Radicalization, and Religion,” March 5, 2020
• Philosophy and Religious Studies Student Awards Reception, March 4, 2020
• Sylvester Johnson (Virginia Tech), “Of Matter and the Spirit: Religion, the Cyborg, and the Digital Future of Humanity,” Annual Impact of Religion Lecture, February 6, 2020
• Carl R. Holladay (Emory University), “The Right to Confront One’s Accusers: How Acts 25:16 Has Figured in U.S. Constitutional Law,” November 7, 2019
• Jason C. Bivins (NC State), “Embattled Majority: Religion and Its Despisers in America,” October 3, 2019

2018-19

• Kelly J. Baker (Editor, Women in Higher Education), “The Artifacts of White Nationalism,” April 11, 2019
• Philosophy and Religious Studies Student Awards Reception, March 7, 2019
• Jeffrey Stout (Princeton), “Cinematic Spectacles of Sacred Suffering: Ethical Challenges in Dreyer and Von Trier,” Annual Impact of Religion Lecture, February 18, 2019
• Screening of Dreyer’s film The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), February 12, 2019, in advance of the above Impact of Religion Lecture (Sponsored by Film Studies and Religious Studies)
• Finbarr Curtis (Georgia Southern University), “Profane Contexts: On Cartoons, Offense, Free Speech, and Guns,” October 18, 2018
• Annie Hardison-Moody (Agricultural and Human Sciences, NC State), “From Resilience to Resignation: Women’s Religious Agency in the Face of Food Insecurity in North Carolina,” September 27, 2018

2017-18

• William Adler (NC State), “Jesus’ Priesthood and the ‘Secret Codex’ in Tiberius,” March 1, 2018 (Religious Studies Colloquium Series, co-sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program)
• Philosophy and Religious Studies Student Awards Reception, February 28, 2018
• Kathryn Lofton (Yale University), “Oprah 2020: The Problem of Celebrity and Politics in America,” Annual Impact of Religion Lecture, February 22, 2018 Read more
• Meredith Coleman-Tobias (Williams College), “Thirst: Sobonfu Somé’s Po(r)table Ritual,” January 22, 2018
• Rian Thum (Loyola University New Orleans and National Humanities Center), “Chinese Pilgrims, Indian Pirs,” November 9, 2017
• Paula Fredriksen (Boston University), “God Was Not Odd/To Choose the Jews: Augustine on the Election of Israel,” November 6, 2017 (sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program)
• Anna B. Bigelow (NC State), “The Tears and Smiles of Hagia Sophia: Istanbul and the Architecture of Religious Power,” October 19, 2017
• Screening of Raise the Roof, a feature documentary by Yari and Cary Wolinsky, followed by a discussion led by Beth Holmgren (Institute for Slavic and Eurasian Studies, Duke University) about the film and other volunteer projects of restoration of cemeteries and synagogues in Poland and Ukraine, October 3, 2017 (sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program)

2016-17

• Adam Lowenstein (University of Pittsburgh), “The Jewish Cronenberg: A Cinema of Therapeutic Disintegration,” April 3, 2017 (Sponsored by the NC State programs in Jewish Studies, Interdisciplinary Studies, and Communication, Rhetoric & Digital Media; the Duke University Jewish Studies Program; and the NC State Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies)
• Eddie Glaude (William S. Tod Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University and President of the American Academy of Religion), “The Problem of ‘African-American Religion’: A Scholar’s Dilemma,” Annual Impact of Religion Lecture with comments by Joseph Winters (Duke), March 30, 2017 Read more
• Armin Langer (Salaam-Shalom Initiative, Berlin), “Let Us Not Be Divided: Coalition-Building Between Minorities in Europe,” March 22, 2017 (Sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies and the Jewish Studies Program)
• Philosophy and Religious Studies Student Awards Reception, March 1, 2017
• David Nirenberg (University of Chicago), “Anti-Judaism Past and Present,” February 7, 2017 (Sponsored by the NC State Jewish Studies Program)
• Kathryn McClymond (Georgia State University), “Ritual Gone Wrong: What We Learn from Ritual Disruption,” November 7, 2016
• Clark Chilson (University of Pittsburgh), “Introspection as Intervention: Naikan Meditation and Psychiatry in Japan,” November 4, 2016
• Mary Elaine Hegland (Santa Clara University and the National Humanities Center), “Mourning and Mediation: The Politics of Religious Ritual in an Iranian Settlement,” October 20, 2016
• “Immigration, Terrorism, and Islam During the 2016 Elections,” a panel discussion with Dr. Anna Bigelow, Dr. Akram Khater, and Dr. Charles Kurzman, September 19, 2016 (sponsored by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies and the Middle East Studies Program)

2015-16

• Religion and Politics in America and Across the Globe: Perspectives from Leading Analysts: Impact of Religion Forum, April 14, 2016. The speakers were Dr. Robert P. Jones, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute, and Dr. Douglas M. Padgett, unit leader for the Middle East in the U.S. Department of State Office of International Religious Freedom.
• Philosophy and Religious Studies Student Awards Reception, March 2, 2016
• Verena Kasper-Marienberg (University of Graz, Austria), “Who Gets the Best Fish? Jewish-Christian Conflicts in 18th Century Frankfurt,” February 11, 2016
• Emanuel Fiano (Duke), “The Rise and Fall of ‘Jewish Christianity’,” February 2, 2016
• Rachel M. Lindsey (Washington University in St. Louis), “A Communion of Shadows: Religion and Photography in Nineteenth-Century America,” November 18, 2015
• William Adler (NC State), “Edessa and the Creation of a Christian Aristocracy,” October 15, 2015
• Flagg Miller (UC Davis), “The Audacious Ascetic: Sounding Out Insurgency through Osama bin Laden’s Audiotape Collection,” September 16, 2015 (Co-sponsored by the Laboratory for Analytical Sciences, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies)

2014-15

• Tulasi Srinivas (Emerson College), “Forging Faith: Ritual Creativity, Wonder and Ethical Inquiry in Contemporary India,” April 16, 2015
• Helen Dixon (NC State – History), “Into the Houses of Baal: Reassessing the Evidence for Phoenecian Religious Practice in the Iron Age Levant,” April 15, 2015
• Jason Sturdevant (NC State), “The First Christian Superheroes: Reading the Second and Third Century Acts of the Apostles,” March 25, 2015
• Philosophy and Religious Studies Student Awards Reception, March 4, 2015
• John Corrigan (Florida State University and the National Humanities Center), “American Christians and the Feeling of Emptiness,” February 12, 2015
• Tu Yichao (Fudan University, China and the National Humanities Center), “Billy Graham, American Evangelicals and Sino-American Relations,” November 12, 2014
• Jason Ānanda Josephson (Williams College), “The Invention of ‘Religion’ in Japan,” October 16, 2014

For a record of earlier lectures and events, please click here.